LIVERPOOL: Sidlow; Shepherd, Lambert, Taylor, Jones, Paisley, Payne, Balmer, Stubbins. Done, Liddell.
BLACKPOOL: Farm; Shimwell, Suart, Johnston, Hayward, Kelly, Matthews, Mortensen, McIntosh (W), McKnight, Wardle.
Referee: Mr J. Williams (Bolton).
THE GAME
Blackpool played in white, won the toss for whatever it was worth, which was not such a lot.
They might have lost a goal in the first 20 seconds as McKnight went into a tackle on Payne which the referee said was all wrong.
Sequel was a free-kick lofted high into a packed goalmouth by Shepherd, and a hurtling dive at the ball by Done which missed Farm by a foot as the forward catapulted over the line into the net with the goalkeeper holding the ball superbly as this human torpedo passed him.
OVER THE BAR
Almost immediately the incident was repeated near the other goal where Matthews crossed a free-kick for a foul on himself. McKnight, leaping at it, headed inches over the bar.
In the next minute Blackpool’s criticised left wing was in the game, won a corner from a position perfectly created by Wardle who, after an almost bewildering zig-zag foray, released a perfect pass to McKnight.
For minutes afterwards Liverpool’s defence was almost under siege, shot after shot in one attack cannoning back off a massed defence.
Yet, in the fifth minute, one direct raid again nearly put Liverpool in front, Liddell taking his partner’s forward pass, cutting inside on an empty wing and thundering across a ball which bounced in and out before Done hooked it back fast for the last time and Balmer missed it by half an inch as it flew away from him almost under the bar.
MODEL RAIDS
Blackpool’s game was good to watch
It was great open football while it lasted - and it continued.
Some of Blackpool raids were a model, Johnston. Mortensen and Matthews building one, and McIntosh, with a peach of a pass far out to the right wing, another.
Neither led anywhere, but they were good to watch.
Balmer headed into Farm’s hands from Stubbins’ centre in a Liverpool attack of comparable precision.
In the next minute the 10th of the half, Blackpool went in front.
It was a one-man goal. As I saw it a rebounding ball flew away to WILLIE McINTOSH who hesitated, as if expecting the offside whistle, saw the referee waving him on, spurted in an amazing speed for 30 yards unchallenged before shooting from a narrow angle a ball which skidded fast across the face of a Liverpool goal and inches inside the far post as McKnight hurling himself at it, missed it and dived into the net.
Liverpool, with the famous Anfield roar thundering, went at it for minutes afterwards.
One free kick was won almost on the penalty area line, half a dozen raids followed it, but none of them arrived anywhere with the last pass always being made too fast.
It was Blackpool who were nearer a goal and might have made it 2-0 in the 18th minute if McIntosh and Mortensen had not apparently misunderstood each other’s intentions and, in the end, lost McKnight’s pass with the Liverpool defence split open by another fast direct raid.
LIVERPOOL LEVEL
Yet in the 24th minute the Blackpool goal fell a couple of minutes after McKnight had hit the foot of a post with a great shot a split second after the offside whistle had gone.
Again it was a rebounding ball which made a goal.
This time Done, ever alert and aggressive, pounced on it, retrieved it as it was bouncing over the line, squared it across so perfectly that BALMER, standing almost under the bar, could do little else except add yet another to the goals he has scored against Blackpool in his time.
It was a goal which seemed merely to inspire Blackpool to finer football than the team had played earlier - and a lot of it had been first-class.
McKnight, in this game as he was never in last week’s match, war barely wide with a great opportunist shot.
In the next minute McIntosh, judging the flight of Wardle’s corner kick to a fraction, headed in a ball so fast that Sidlow was content to punch it over the bar for Blackpool’s fourth corner of the match.
STILL ON TOP
McIntosh left defence standing
Interrupted only by Liverpool’s breakaways, which were, however, always fast and menacing, the Blackpool pressure continued.
McIntosh went after a long lobbed ball at a great pace, left Liverpool’s unprepared defence standing, and headed inches only over the bar.
Another minute and Suart shot at such a pace from 50 yards that Sidlow was still falling full length and nowhere near the ball as it skidded out an inch wide of a post.
Yet, after all this, it was Liverpool who nearly took the lead and were unfortunate not to take it five minutes before half-time.
HIT POST
Hayward conceded a free kick for a hit-or-miss tackle on Liddell. Liddell took it half a dozen yards outside the area after Mr. Williams had solemnly paced out the distance for the Blackpool defence.
Fast and low the ball shot in. found a gap in the massed ranks facing it. Down to it Farm fell, reached it, but could not hold it, was still on his knees as Liddell raced in to the cannoning ball and shot it fast against a post.
It had been at the interval one of the best and fastest games I have seen this season.
At times it was merciless - I saw the referee rebuke three Blackpool players in the last 30 minutes of the half - but as a half there had been pace, drama and nearly everything else in it.
Fast aggressive forwards had dominated it. I should think both defences were glad to hear the half-time whistle.
Half-time: Liverpool 1, Blackpool 1.
SECOND HALF
The Blackpool defence facing the sun conceded a corner in the first 45 seconds of the half.
It would have been a corner worth a goal, too, if. after a couple of men had lost the ball in the sun’s glare, Suart had not hooked it away from Balmer, with Liverpool’s inside-right in a scoring position.
The Liverpool pressure continued, but for a time produced nothing except a disputed free kick which Liddell shot into the line of men ranked in front of it.
It was not until Kelly came perfectly out of a tackle, beat another man and opened a left wing raid that the Blackpool forwards were, up to now, in this half at all.
A minute afterwards, however. McIntosh, a second edition of Mortensen for speed today, took a loose pass, outpaced two men and shot a ball which Sidlow. could only parry and eventually clear as his centre-half appeared on the scene to shield him.
Nine minutes of the half had gone - nine minutes as fast as ever - but with few big incidents in them.
BRILLIANT SAVE
Then Liverpool were nearly in the lead again.
This time Balmer and Done surged through in partnership. Done took the other inside forward’s last pass, shot it fast inside and left Farm to reach it as he lurched to his; left and in the next half second cleared brilliantly.
As McKnight. crossed a falling centre in the next minute Sidlow leaped at it, lost it, and for a couple of seconds left the ball bouncing loose on the empty goal-line.
Free-kicks were coming at the rate of about one a minute. No quarter was being given and none apparently was being asked.
Wardle and the progressive constructive Kelly won a corner for Blackpool with still little between the teams and from the flag Wardle nearly put Blackpool in front as he crossed a ball which sailed away from Sidlow and nearly swerved inside the far post.
Backwards and forwards this mile - a - minute match raged. Suart made one great overhead clearance as Stubbins went tearing after a forward pass.
In the next half minute, in front of the other goal, McIntosh hooked the ball barely over the bar direct from Wardle’s long falling centre. A goal was near every minute.
GRAZED POST
Mortensen took a free kick a few yards outside the penalty area and appeared with it to graze a post.
Neither team was over long in command of the game. Backwards and forwards it was still raging with 20 minutes left.
For a time Liverpool were in retreat, but still packing a heavyweight punch in every raid.
Fifteen minutes were left and McIntosh, too fast for Jones yet again, passed the centre-half, reached shooting position and half stabbed a shot slowly wide.
Stubbins headed into Farm’s hands from Liddell’s centre with Liverpool storming to the attack as the game neared its end, and Blackpool’s goalkeeper often in desperate action.
Ten minutes were left and it was a game still as open as when it had begun.
Both teams played the closing minutes as if the pace had told at last. Blackpool were entitled to a point and ultimately seldom appeared fated to lose it.
The official attendance was 52,914.
Result:
LIVERPOOL 1 (Balmer 24 Mins)
BLACKPOOL 1 (McIntosh 10 mins)
According to the bills this was not a Cuptie but in its pace, and at times its fury, it resembled one.
It was also for the first 45 minutes a first-class football patch with both forward lines fast, direct and assertive and all the time it was a game packed with as many incidents as a melodrama.
Blackpool’s forwards during the first half and, in a lesser degree in the second, were a good progressive line, raiding on an open front and led with enterprise and an unsuspected speed by Willie McIntosh.
McKnight silenced a few of the critics by his tireless football in the first half, but Mortensen is still not finding or forcing those old paths to goal.
Wardle is still disinclined to make the direct move. But as a line there was not a lot wrong with it for the first hour of this game.
As always the half-backs were great with the two men on the flanks, Johnston and Kelly, winning in the tackle nine times out of 10 and giving all the passes that a forward line could reasonably expect.
Under pressure Hayward and his full-backs, once Suart had learned how to halt the elusive Payne, stood up gallantly to a battering ram attack.
It faded towards the end of this game but it was good while the pace lasted.
NEXT WEEK: LIKE A CUPTIE NEXT WEEK
THERE can be no more Cup-ties at Blackpool this season but next weekend it will be the next best thing with Preston North End here - and Preston desperate for points which must be won if relegation is to be escaped.
Blackpool’s forwards have been making hay of Preston’s defences in recent times. There was the famous 7-0 match at Deepdale on the last day of last season.
A 3-1 game, which again might have approached double figures, followed on the Preston ground last October. Nothing seemed easier in those two games than for a Blackpool forward to shoot or head a ball past the Preston goalkeeper.
If that should happen next weekend it might be calamitous for North End, who have won only two away matches this season, and in 14 games on tour lost 29 goals, an average of over two a match.
The big question for Preston is “Will Tom Finney be fit?” He was in the 7-0 rout last May, but that was a freak match, and the truth is that his presence in the North End attack can make a whole lot of difference - and has often made it this season.
Preston won at Blackpool in last season’s game. There was only one goal in it, and it was scared by a small lightweight centre - forward who next weekend will be pitting himself against the North End defence. His name is Willie McIntosh.
BLACKPOOL “TRAIN ’EM YOUNG” PLAN
TAKES TIME
By “Spectator”
EVER since Joe Robinson was transferred to Hull City last weekend there have been letters in the mail asking “What is Blackpool's team building policy?"
A few assert “There isn't one!" and a few others complain “ If ever there was one it's been forgotten in the lust for transfer fees.
I knew this would be the sequel to this latest departure - and to the dismissal from the Cup.
I am not blaming Blackpool for releasing Robinson. The club would probably have preferred to retain him. But, dissatisfied with his relegation to the second team only a few months after being in the limelight of Wembley, this goalkeeper asked for a transfer, and, in all justice, could scarcely be refused one.
But, now that he is gone, Blackpool are left with only one professional goalkeeper on full time, George Farm, and would be compelled, if he were hurt - and he was nearly in hospital a week ago - to field Walter Thorpe, a young understudy who has not yet played in a First Division game.
No. 1 priority
OBVIOUSLY, therefore, the next man on Blackpool’s priority list must be a goalkeeper - and one who has been under fire in the big leagues.
But the question which I have been asked all this week “Are Blackpool going to sell but never to buy?” still has to be answered.
I think a review of events since League football was reintroduced after the war affords the answer.
These were the 11 men who played for Blackpool at Huddersfield on August 31, 1946, in the first postwar match in the First Division:
Wallace: Sibley, Lewis, Buchan (T.), Suart, Johnston, Munro, Buchan (W.), Mortensen, Blair (J.), McIntosh (J.).
Big changes
THREE only were in Blackpool’s A team last weekend only two- and-a-half years later. Four have been transferred - Jock Wallace (Leith Athletic), Eric Sibley (Grimsby Town), Willie Buchan (Hull City) and Jimmy Blair (Bournemouth).
Others have gone, too, who were on the staff in 1946, among them George Eastham, Jock Dodds, George Dick, George Farrow, Hugh O’Donnell. Sammy Nelson. Dick Burke, David Craig, Bob Finan, Malcolm Butler, and Jim Todd.
All this is in the inevitable course of events, almost in the inevitable course of Nature. It is not peculiar to Blackpool alone. Time takes its toll.
I am not disparaging one of the men who have left. One or two of them might even today be giving good service to Blackpool if they had not in every case asked for a transfer and, as Blackpool apparently prefer free, contented men to bond slaves, been given one.
Convincing case
BUT the fact remains that not one player transferred from Blackpool since the war is playing today in First Division football, and only four, Dodds, Eastham, Sibley and Dick, are in class higher than the Third Division.
So, if the Blackpool board wanted to defend its postwar policy in transfer sales - and the board, I am convinced, is not persuaded that its policy requires defence - these facts alone would make a convincing, nearly unanswerable, case.
But teams, winning teams, are not built by selling, but by buying, or, alternatively and preferably, by building from young material, which, actually, is the keystone of Blackpool’s policy, unspectacular as it may be in these days when the stars alone are given headlines.
Buyers, too
BUT Blackpool have bought - and paid high prices, too, since the war.
Last week’s team contained five since-the-war purchases, George Farm, Eddie Shimwell, Stanley Matthews, Willie McIntosh and Billy Wardle, who have cost not a lot less than £40,000.
That is not big money as Newcastle United and one or two others in the millionaire belt count it, but it’s big money for a club with probably the smallest revenue in the First Division.
A club with a 30,000 capacity ground would soon go on the rocks if it began shuttling up and down the land signing five-figure cheques every time somebody said "You need a new forward” or “You must have a new full-back."
Long-term plan
BLACKPOOL, to be frank, have to make a virtue of necessity in this concentration on the training of recruits. There can, nevertheless, be nothing but admiration for this policy. Unfortunately it is a long-term plan, and as a consequence it has its defects.
For these recruits take time to prepare and mature for the big game. Two of them, Ewan Fenton and Jack Wright, were introduced into Blackpool’s first team early this season and never let the team down.
One of them, the full-back, Wright, was, in fact, so good that his continued presence in the "A” team I don’t pretend to understand.
Must be signings
BUT while this “A” team and the two other minor teams are first-class nurseries - four of the “A” team alone were selected the other day for Lancashire which is an all-time record - they cannot yet be expected to produce, as if off an assembly belt, players with all the qualities required to duplicate every position in a First Division eleven.
That time may come, but in two and a half years such a system cannot be perfected, and for a year or two yet, according to my calculations, Blackpool will have to sign the ready-made product at times in preference to fielding its own home-made article when reserves are required in the First Division.
But that in itself is not a condemnation of the nursery plan, which will yet, I am convinced, completely vindicate itself at Blackpool.
And the Fylde ?
THE main fact is that there is this plan, and that it has been in operation since the war, the only criticism I have of it being that too seldom the club’s scouts seem to be out and about in the Fylde region offering trials to the young men of promise there must be in this zone.
Similarly, too, the club has spent, and spent at times beyond its means. It may have to spend again on a goalkeeper and, in the near future, on the tall inside-forward the front line still manifestly requires.
But a policy there is, and considering that two seasons ago Blackpool won a record number of First Division points for the club - 50 - and last season a Blackpool team went to Wembley for the first time it cannot be such a bad policy, either.
Scot with a shot
DOUGLAS DAVIDSON, whose “hat trick” for Blackpool in the Central League match at Preston was the biggest scoring achievement for Blackpool Reserve since Jim McIntosh had four goals against Leeds United on December 13, 1947, was often among the goals played for East Fife.
His record with the Scottish club before coming to Blackpool was 26 in 90 games, which is a reasonably high average for an inside- forward in any class of football.
When he signed for Blackpool he broke up one of the most famous trinities in Scotland, for from the days when he played as a boy for Lochee Central he had been in a spearhead which included his brother, Jack, in the other inside position and Henry Morris at centre-forward.
They went from the Central to Dundee Violet, and, still one firm, s hooting the goals all the time, from the Violet to East Fife.
HUPBICK STORY
THE transfer of Harry Hubbick the ex-Bolton Wanderer, from Port Vale to Rochdale a few days ago recalls a remarkable chapter in wartime football.
Those were the days when managers often found themselves with only 10 or even eight or nine men on the eve of important matches.
Blackpool were in a dilemma only 24 hours before the second and deciding instalment of the War Cup Final against Sheffield Wednesday in 1943.
Only one full-back could be given leave for the following day. So over went Mr. Joe Smith to his old happy hunting ground at Burnden Park, and persuaded Hubbick to wear a tangerine jersey the following afternoon.
As a result this full-back became the first and only man in football ever to play his only big game for a club in a Cup Final
Jottings from all parts
BY "SPECTATOR" 19 February 1949
SO the Bolton-cannot-lose-at-Blackpool bogey has been laid at last. For the first time since a remote and distant year before the first world war the Wanderers have lost a peacetime match on the Blackpool ground.
Now, excepting the two clubs Birmingham and Newcastle United, promoted last May, there are in the present First Division only three clubs undefeated by Blackpool since the war.
One is Sunderland, who have won four and drawn two of the postwar games. The others are both among Blackpool’s Lancashire rivals - Manchester City and Burnley. In three successive games Blackpool have yet to score a goal against the Burnley defence.
NO decision has yet been reached, but, in spite of an open invitation to tour Denmark again for the third successive year, the Blackpool directors will probably ban a Continental tour by the team at the end of the present season.
I think they would be wise to say “No.” Too much football is being played these days. It is one of the reasons, if not the only one, for the indisputable decline in the game’s quality.
With a season which opens in mid-August and encroaches into May players show signs of staleness long before the end.
To play a series of matches on the Continent afterwards could in theory be a nice little vacation, but in practice it is nothing of the sort, with every match ballyhooed in advance until it becomes almost an international which for the sake of prestige alone no team can afford to lose.
Blackpool should never have gone to Denmark last May after a Cup Final season. I don’t think they will go this time.
I MAKE no apology for another reference to the chivalry of the Bolton forwards in their treatment of the disabled George Farm in last weekend’s match.
Not one of them approached near him when he was making a clearance in the second half, and the one who collided with him in the accident which nearly put him out of the game - Billy Moir, the Wanderers’ general utility man - was the first to go back to him and shake his hand when the game ended.
Too many people seem to think professional football is played these days only by pug-uglies. This was the answer to them.
There are a few men playing today - I could name them if there were no law of libel, and one or two of them are in the First Division and have famous names - without whom the game would be richer and sweeter and cleaner.
But they are a negligible minority.
DOZENS of people said “But thought he was out of the game for months” when they read the programme that Nat Lofthouse was playing for Bolton at Blackpool last weekend.
Reports that he had been seriously hurt in the Wanderers’ second Cup replay with the Villa were premature but never denied.
What had happened was sufficiently depressing to a player who has been in the wars a lot this season, but a dislocation of small bone in the right knee which was the extent of the disablement, was not half so grave as at first feared.
There were no signs that the tall aggressive centre-forward was not 100 per cent, on Saturday.
It is no secret that Lofthouse wanted to leave Burnden Park a few months ago and would have come to Blackpool if the Wanderers had released him.
Now from all I hear, he’s at Bolton for the rest of his playing days.
Cheer them v. Preston
NEXT Saturday local rivals, North End, will be at Bloomfield-road.
A big crowd, including many Preston fans, is sure to be present and Blackpool supporters should give the players plenty of vocal encouragement.
THE committee of the Supporters’ Club are sorry that owing to a misunderstanding the postponement of the semi-final and final of the players’ snooker tournament at the Albert Hall was not announced.
The inconvenience which resulted for members who turned up is regretted.
Owing to the Cup replay with Stoke it was necessary to postpone the event at short notice. It is hoped that the semi-final and final will now be played on Tuesday, March 8.
***
ARRANGEMENTS for the big dance at the Tower on St. Patrick’s night are now well in hand.
***
SINCE Blackpool’s exit from the Cup there has been a definite falling-off in the renewal of membership and applications from new members. Fans should join the club immediately and let the Blackpool Supporters Club be representative of the followers of the Football Club.
The registration secretary is Mr. F. Cross, 1, Wyre-grove, Blackpool.
Write to him immediately or call at the Supporters’ hut at the south-west corner of Bloomfield-road.
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